The attacks according to a PSNI Spokesperson, George Hamilton, were carried out by dissident republicans opposed to peace.
Republican attacks on the police in the North have a long history. Over three hundred Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers lost their lives during the conflict mostly at the hands of the Provisional IRA. But before the Provisional IRA came into existence police were also targeted by previous incarnations of the IRA.
Operation Harvest, the codename given to its border campaign which the IRA launched in December 1956 quickly saw fatalities. Limerick IRA member Sean South died on New Year's Day the following month while mounting an armed attack on a police station in Co Fermanagh. He was buried on this day in 1957.
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| Funeral of Sean South Purchase Prints @ Irish Photo Archive |
The IRA will always be around; generation after generation will take up arms against what they perceive as the British enemy,
ReplyDeleteThere is no such thing as a dissident republican this is a term used by former republican militants who have turned their backs on the armed struggle and now have joined political parties like Fine Gael then later Fianna Fail , in there was The Workers Party and now we have Sinn Fein,
Today Sinn Fein condemn the modern version of the IRA for doing exactly what the Provisional movement had be doing for 30 years and failed ,
The modern IRA should look back through history and see how the armed resistance has failed, surely there has to be a more peaceful way
When I was a boy I'd hear the song "Seán South of Garryowen.." and I thought it was aabout a guy called Seán who lived to the south of Garryowen. Now I discover he wasn't even from Garryowen at all.
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